Housing research funded by the International Center for Finance

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham

Assistant Professor of Finance

Gender Gap in Housing Returns

(with Kelly Shue, JF 2023)

  • Housing wealth is the dominant form of savings for US households
  • Unlike stocks, housing is illiquid, heterogeneous, and priced through negotiation
  • Research showing gender differences in preferences for risk and negotiation

Single women have lower returns than single men

Even conditional on market timing

  • 50 million housing transactions (thanks to Yale ICF data purchases)
  • Annual 2p.p. gap between single men and single women
  • Decreases to 0.9p.p. after controlling for market timing

Non-market timing effect is driven by negotiation

  • Female sellers sell for less
    • More so to men
  • Male sellers sell for more
    • More so to women

Gender gap in returns disappears with holding length

Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing Cycle

(With Sonia Gilbukh, R&R at RFS)

Many inexperienced agents thanks to free entry

and commission structure

Experience has biggest effect during crash

Big effects above and beyond price

And even had impacts on subsequent foreclosure rates

Other work in progress thanks to the ICF

  1. Housing
    • How does affordability and mobility affect housing?
  2. Algorithms and Lending
    • How do algorithms affect lending?
    • How does competition between algorithms affect lending?
  3. Consumer bankruptcy and intermediaries
    • How do bankruptcy lawyers affect the bankruptcy filing process?